


A Failure of Modernity

by NAOA



Category: Hellblazer, Hellblazer & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Creepy, Fantasy, Fear, Gen, Ghosts, Horror, Industrialization, Nightmares, Psychological Horror, Smoking, Social Commentary, Spooky, Trippy, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28840257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NAOA/pseuds/NAOA
Summary: Portrait of a man on a road, no destination, no goal. He's simply following along in the well trodden footsteps made by a million men before him, making his way across the south of England and towards a special kind of hell. The hell John Constantine is headed towards is a very nasty piece of modernity. It's a kind of psychic scar left on the earth and her peoples and found in the dead towns and vanished hamlets across the world and while it might not be his scar, for a night, John Constantine will bare the marks of industry and the wounds of progress. Tonight he shares a familiar kind of pain and he will find it in a little town called Bretby, in a forgotten corner of the world.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	A Failure of Modernity

Portrait of a man on a road, no destination, no goal. He's simply following along in the well trodden footsteps made by a million men before him, making his way across the south of England and towards a special kind of hell. The hell John Constantine is headed towards is a very nasty piece of modernity. It's a kind of psychic scar left on the earth and her peoples and found in the dead towns and vanished hamlets across the world and while it might not be his scar, for a night, John Constantine will bare the marks of industry and the wounds of progress. Tonight he shares a familiar kind of pain and he will find it in a little town called Bretby, in a forgotten corner of the world.

John's footing it after a fight with a lorry driver. Nothing serious, just politics but he'd had his fill of listening to the man complain about foreigners and Labour and so off on foot he'd gone, taking in what was an unusually sunny day in the open and thinking that maybe he aught to travel on foot more often.

He'd seen a sign a few miles back for a town ahead and so he's not too worried about finding a place to put up for the night. He throws his coat over his shoulder and feels the breeze. Somerset is green and picturesque in the midday light and he's got few worries on his mind as he hikes onward.

Somerset is a land of out of the way history, Romans and Paleolithic caves. He thinks about them as he walks and enjoys the sun on his head and the smell of the trees and grass around him.

Then of course, things change. A cloud passes over the sun and then another and before he can curse it's growing dark, a freak, evil little storm coming and John hurries on, hoping against hope that he can reach the village before the rain starts.

He doesn't but it's a close call and he's only drenched a little by the time he reaches the edge of the village.

If it wasn't pissing out the village would have looked picturesque too. Little, thatched cottages, timeless and post card worthy.

He passes them and finds the inn, looking for a dry place to change and something to drink.

As luck would have it, there's a girl behind the bar. Blond hair and a glass in hand.

He smiles when he sees her, thinking of flirting.

She smiles back. "Afternoon." She say's.

He glances back out the windows. "Is it?" He asks. "It looks a damn sight more like night than day."

She laughs. "Got you into our inn though, didn't it?" She say's. "Want the room or a pint first?"

He takes the pint and settles himself onto a stool opposite her, giving her his best smile. "So you'd be the innkeeper?" He asked.

She beams. "I'd be his daughter." She said. "But he leaves me to run the bar."

He takes his pint and looks around. There's no one else in the little inn and yet she seems happy enough.

He shrugs. "Where are the other day drinks?" He asks.

She points through the rain and across the village, up the hill. "Working." She say's.

He nods, he'd seen the mill looming in the distance as he'd gotten close to the village, a black, hulking thing in the rain now.

"They'll be back soon though, everyone want's a pint after work."

He drinks to that and looks back out the window at the torrential down pour. "Get storms like this a lot, do you?" He asks.

She just blinks and he supposes he's asking stupid questions and instead holds out his hand to her.

She smiles and shakes it, grip warm and hearty.

"John Constantine." He say's.

Her smile widens. "Mary."

"Well, Mary the barmaid. . ." He say's. "I don't suppose I could get a room for tonight? I'm on foot as it were."

She nods and goes and get's him a dusty key.

"Been a while?" He asks, cheeky as ever.

She winks. "Not so long." She say's, just as cheeky.

He grins into his pint but behaves. 'The land lord's daughter' plays through his head.

And then the door opens and in comes the rain and the unwashed masses. They flood in like water themselves, filthy from the mines and wet from the rain.

John finds himself cramped up at the bar as they clamor round for pints and whiskies.

Mary however seems to be in her element and is passing out glasses with expert precision, happily, joyfully, filling their empty hands and mouths.

He watches with some amusement but the amusement is short lived for a second wave enters the bar, women this time from the mill, their hands hard and their hair faded. They come and join their men and drink their pints around him.

Mary looks happy as ever and soon the room is filled with the sounds of conversation and the beating of rain on the windows and roof.

There's a pint in every hand and wouldn't you know it, one in his and he drains it before skipping up to his room to change.

He can still hear them all below, angry bodies just off the clock, wanting food and drink and more.

How Mary does it he doesn't know but she looked like she was where she wanted to be and so he only shakes his head and thinks that he'll go down and have another pint in a little while.

He rests up instead, laying back and taking a moment to relax after his walk. The storm is raging outside and he can hear the clink of glasses down below.

It lulls him to sleep and he dreams of shadowed mills, towering over blond haired barmaids and hands reaching for pints. He dreams of picks and shovels and of men disappearing into the earth. Great, black holes that swallow years and lives and spit out a pittance of coal in return. He dreams of men and boys, ageless and dirty, black faces and straining eyes and he awakes, heart hammering and skin clammy to only the sounds of the storm outside.

He can hear it screaming, lashing the windows and walls of the inn and for a moment he just lays and listens to it.

The wind is fierce and the gale sounds sad to him as it whips through the village below.

He gets up after a while and goes to the window, looking out on the cobbles and the lights that have been knocked out in the storm.

The little village is almost burried in the rain, washed out and ready to float away and yet in the distance he can see the mill and. . . his eyes strain and he can make out a steady trickle of people going up the hill.

Theyre small and black in the darkness, tiny ants on their way up to work.

Another line is making its way down towards what he can only guess is the entrance of the mines, somewhere past the edge of the village.

Strange to think they're all going to work so late but he shrugs it off and heads back downstairs, finding Mary where he left her.

She smiles, teeth bright, eyes sharp.

He smiles back. He likes her, he thinks and he orders another pint and some supper.

She makes it up and he wonders where her father is.

"You looked hungry." She says When she puts the plate in front of him and slips him another pint. "No charge for the extra." She winks and he feels actually caught off guard by her. Shes flirting faster than he is.

"Ta." He says, digging in. "What's all the fuss outside about? Night shift?"

She glances towards the windows, eyes far away before she smiles again. "Night shift?" She asks. "The mill has to run or the village will go."

He stops eating for a moment, digesting her words and the pudding shed made. "Oh, or the village will go." He repeats, digging back in.

She laughs like chimes and grabs a glass, wiping it down. "And we have to dig or the mill will close." She says. "If the mill goes the village will go."

He nods slowly, a creeping sensation because no mines should be open this late, no mill spinning wool.

She doesn't seem concerned however and she keeps wiping her glass, humming softly.

He eats his meal and the door opens again and a new wave of miners enter, dirty and reaching for their pints. He wonders why they agree to work like this. Its inhuman, its fucked up.

And when he looks around he sees men and boys, not a one of them whole. Missing arms, mangled hands, crutches and worse. His own father had lost an arm in a mine.

His stomach turns and he sees Mary smiling and handing out pints, the happiest face in the place.

The others are dirty and worn, crippled and used up.

He steps outside for a smoke, sheltering under the eves and failing miserably.

His cigarette falls victim to the down pour and he puffs hard, trying to burn through the wet spots. It doesn't hit very well but when it comes to cigs he's no quitter.

The rain is awful though and he feels it beat him through his coat as he turns this way and that, seeking shelter.

In the distance he can see the mill, orange windows and smoke stacks like watch towers. Guard towers. The place looks evil against a black sky, darker yet and menacing.

He feels it in his bones, the place is evil and it knows he's there. Know's he's watching.

Its choking when he realizes it. The mill knows. The mill is watching him, watching them all and then he sees the women coming down from the hill. Sees the girls walking with them and their as bad as the men and boys, all worn and faded out, mangled and raw.

He watches them and is afraid and then the inn door opens and the men are spilling out, picking up their picks and shovels from the street, everything wet and ready to destroy.

"Come on then!" One of the men calls out to him, waving a joyless hand.

He presses back against the inn and shakes his head but the women are coming in now and they're pushing him, forcing him to walk with the men as they return to the mines.

He sees a boy, black faced and jumper torn, the lad's pick is too big for him and he grabs the child.

"What are you doing?" He asks, shouting over the wind and the rain.

The boy is limp in his hands and just blinks at him. "Its my first day." He says but it can't be because his arm is mangled and ruined already, his little face bruised and dirty.

John let's him go, feeling hot panic in his chest and tries to stumble back and away from the mass of mangled men and boys but they shove him back and cajole him along, all of them marching, forcing him towards a fate he's escaped.

Liverpool lads make great miners.

He shakes his head and they're near the edge of the village. He doesn't want this. He doesn't want to be part of it.

"Come on then, John!" Someone else calls to him. "Everyone goes into the earth eventually. Come with us and you'll get to come back out before it's permanent."

The sea of bodies is forcing him on and he's clawing desperately, fighting against their masses and the torrents of rain.

Someone is trying to force a pick into his hands and he's shaking them, trying to keep from grasping the handle. He doesn't want this.

He breaks with speed that hurts him and he tears away from the men and boys, seeing one with his head crushed, still whistling.

He screams and fights his way free, the wind and rain lashing his skin and beating his head.

He's running full tilt away from his father's fate and then horribly he sees the women and girls, streaming back up the hill and towards the mill, a mass of soggy dresses and wasted lives.

A woman passes, holding hands with a little girl, her head scalped. Blond hair and black blood.

He nearly screams again and almost throws up looking at her but she doesn't seem to have realized she's dead and she's nothing but big, blue eyes and blood.

She smiles at him and he forces himself to smile back, the mill looming above them like a black tower of hate.

Getting closer.

He doesn't want to go inside, he thinks he'd rather die. He wants to turn and run back to the inn but the crippled masses are too many and he realizes this is a village that never sleeps. Always awake, always working. They can't stop working!

The little girl has broken from her mother and she snakes a worn little hand into his. "Are you coming to work with us?" She asks.

He shakes his head and she laughs, blood running down her face. "I'm going to get married when I grow up and then I won't have to work in the mill so much." She sounds happy but he knows she's not going to grow up.

"You do that, love, try to find a good one." He finds himself saying, slipping away from her hand.

She's lost in the mass. bodies shoving him.

Wet wool all around, wind striking, rain cutting.

He claws his way free and down the side of the hill, tripping and falling and hating the rain and the mud.

Rocks cut at him as he slips and slides, down and down until he's just breathing mud and there's water in his eyes.

The mill is hovering over him, evil and hateful. It's eyes are trying to swallow him up, just as it's mouth swallows up all of the village's women.

He cowers from it, not wanting it to see his face, not wanting to be heard and then he breaks for it back to the village and to the inn.

The door opens more easily than he'd expected and he he over balances, looking up. It's just Mary now and he doesn't understand. There were people here. They just came back. His head is spinning with visions of scalped blonds and mangled boys in jumpers.

She watches him with curiosity, heaving in the door, covered in mud. She isn't real.

"Are you okay?" She asks. "Here, sit down! Do you want a drink?"

He shakes his head. "Where are they?" It's the first thing in his mind.

She blinks. "At work." She say's. "We all have to work or the village will go."

"Go where?" He breaths, shutting the door, ears ringing from the storm outside. "Where is it going?" He asks.

She blinks a second time, eyes searching him. "The people will go." She say's. "To London and Bristol and Edinburgh or America. We keep the mill and the mine open so they stay."

"What about you?" He asks, quieter this time. She's so normal, so clean in this place of filth and death.

She just stares at him. "They'll want a pint after work. That's my job. My father leaves me to mind the bar."

He sags suddenly because she's just as much a part of it as they are. "Are they coming back?" He asks.

She looks towards the window. "It should be soon."

"But the shifts don't make sense."

They don't.

She nods. "But they'll want a drink either way." She picks up a glass and begins to wipe it and he he just stands there, dripping onto the floor.

"Right." He whispers. "Everyone likes having a pint after work."

She nods again and he looks out the window too. They're out there, working forever. Working to exist because if they stop, the village will go. They've never stopped. The village is still here.

He goes and get's his things, no longer finding her so cheeky. She's empty now, wiping her glass and humming, bright teeth and sharp eyes and meaningless.

She smiles at him. "Going so soon?" She asks.

He nods weakly. "Yeah."

She looks out the window and keeps smiling. "Too bad you couldn't stay."

He nods again. "Thank you." He say's, more sad than anything now.

She laughs. "You're welcome of course. Come back any time!"

And he's out in the rain again, seeing the angry eyes of the mill above him, it's evil still working, still drawing people in and spitting them out, it's guts still demanding coal.

He sees the crowed of miners coming. The mangled boy is with them and the boy looks at him as they pass, eyes wide.

He keeps walking, walking and the mill looks bigger and bigger, angrier, nastier. It's baring down on him as he legs it down the street.

There's got to be a way out.

The women are coming and the rain is still pelting, hitting him with bullets and bombs, cold and unrelenting.

He watches them and one or two turn to look, faces grey and lined.

He keeps walking, not looking for the little girl or her bleeding head.

There's got to be a way out.

The mill is huge and gaping, monstrous even in the dark and he looks up, stomach turning. It can see all.

"What do you want from me?" He shouts at it.

The rain pelts harder and his coat isn't near enough. The damn thing has taken a beating tonight.

He turns and turns and then sees the workers all around him, ghosts in the rain. Dirty faced men and worn thin women. They're all around him, standing in the howling rain, watching him, circling him.

He shakes his head. "Get away from me!" He shouts. "I'm not going into the bloody mine!"

And then there's hands on him, grabbing, pushing, shoving, pushing him down, down, into the earth.

He's up to his eyes in it as they bury him in the mud.

It chokes down his throat and into his lungs, filling his ribs and veins, his lung and organs. . .

He can't breath but at least the rain is above him now and it's patter is almost calming.

He opens his eyes to something black in his face. Something wet and he turns over with a shout and a curse.

It's a dog, sniffing idly at him while man watches from the end of a leash.

It's stopped raining.

"What the bloody hell?!"

He's laying in wet grass, mud all over him but there's no village and the mill is in ruins above him, not gaping or spitting at all.

He looks at the man who's staring at him dumbfound and he think's he get's that all too often.

"What are you sleeping out here for?" The man asks. "You'll freeze to death sleeping like that."

He looks around, shaking slightly. "I. . . where am I?"

"Back end of Jerry's field." The man say's, as if that makes any sense and he looks around, seeing only rubble and foundations of the town he'd run through mere. . . hours. . . minutes ago?

"What happened to the village?" He asks.

The dog looses interest and the man scratches his head. "Village?"

John points to the mill. "There was a village here."

"Not in my life time there wasn't but I seem to recall my grandfather mentioning a Bretby. Sad story, the mines dried up and then the mill closed and the village went with it. Suppose that's how it goes though." The man looks around. "You a history fella?"

John shakes his head and get's to his feet. "That's me."

And the man looks interested. "Writing a book?"

He looks around and up at the ruined mill. It's still there, it's all that's left. It took and it took and it took and it's all that's bloody left.

"Something like that."

"Won't find much on Bretby." The man say's as if it's the most interesting thing he knows.

"I've found plenty." John say's looking down at his mud caked trousers and grimacing.

"Horrible things at the mill. . ." He heard the man saying. "Accidents and the children there." He shook his head. "That going to be in your book?"

He nods, ears ringing and he thinks of Mary and her glass, forever wiping and pouring. Forever waiting for them to come back from work.

"Which way to town, mate?" He asks.

The man breaks from his historical account to point. "What were you sleeping there for anyway?" He asks, evidently done.

He cracks his neck. "Must have fallen and hit my head. Thanks."

The man nods, free hand in his pocket and watches him go.

John finds his way out of Bretby and it feels good to have his back to the mill. Well. . . he glances over his shoulder just to be sure and it's still there, with all of it's victims and the mines below, watching and breathing, putrid.

There are scars on the world, he thinks and the people of Bretby, wherever the living ended up were better for it. The mill is evil and in the end it won.

**Author's Note:**

> I think there were a lot of influences on this story, I think I'd been watching a lot of The Twilight Zone at the time, I know there's some influence from The Wicker Man (1973), the song 'School Day's Over" by Luke Kelly and probably some others but what really inspired this was a mill in a small town I lived in as a kid. The town didn't have a thousand people in it by the time I was born but it had been bigger once and had an old cotton mill in the center of town. It was huge and hulking and scared the crap out of me. I remember sinking down in my seat when my mother drove past it so the evil place wouldn't see me. I didn't even believe in ghosts as a kid but I was scared of that building. It was sandstone, all rough and weathered over the years with these deep set windows that'd been boarded up and chimneys like horns. When I grew up I told my mom as a joke that I'd been scared of the place and she said that I'd been right to be. She said the old women in the town told her about working there and the awful things that happened within. Not just the accidents and keeping girls chained to the equipment but the rape and abuses. You had women who'd been the third and fourth sometimes even fifth generation in their family to work there. A few years ago they sandblasted the whole thing and cleaned it up. It's an apartment complex now but the town is still dead and I wouldn't want to live there. Like Bretby the mines dried up and the mill closed and then the kids all grew up and moved away. I haven't been back there in some years, there's not much to return to but that mill always haunted me and I think that I was thinking of that mill in particular and that community when I wrote this. Thanks for reading!


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